New Delhi: As the number of coronavirus infected patients across India crossed to 3.54 lakh  (354,000), the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said it has increased the number of COVID-19 testing labs to 924. Of the total labs, the number of government labs has been increased to 674 and private labs to 250 that are capable of Real-Time (RT) PCR, TrueNat and CBNAAT based testing.

The RT-PCR based testing labs are 535 that include 347 government and 188 private labs. The number of TrueNat based testing labs is 316, including 302 government and 14 private labs. However, the number of CBNAAT based testing labs is 73, comprising 25 government and 48 private labs.

Sharing the information, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said, a total of 1,63,187 COVID-19 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, and the total number of samples tested so far is 60,84,256.

In the last 24 hours, the Ministry said a total of 6,922 COVID-19 patients were cured. With this, the number of cured patients rose to 1,86,934, indicating that the recovery rate rose to 52.80 per cent, the Ministry said.

For the ninth consecutive day, the number of recoveries remained higher than the active ones. Currently, 1,55,227 active cases are under medical supervision.

However, India witnessed the highest number of fatalities due to novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the last 24 hours, with 2,003 people losing their lives to the pandemic and registered a spike of almost 11,000 cases taking the total tally to 3.54 lakh.

According to the ministry, at least 10,974 fresh cases were reported in the last 24 hours taking the total to 3,54,065 -- the sixth consecutive day showing an increase of over 10,000 cases.

A total of 11,903 people have succumbed to the deadly disease since the first case was reported on January 30, the Health Ministry data said (IANS)